In the Heart of the Young
by Tolakasa
Summary: When she was thirteen, Phyllis Gabor summoned a demon.


**In the Heart of the Young**

There are rules to deals. Not just anybody can make one.

The first rule, the unbreakable one, is that the summoner must be an adult. Not necessarily in body, but in soul. We cannot take a child's soul. A child is still protected by innocence and ignorance.

Some souls are adults before their bodies reach puberty.

Some souls are children forever.

And it was a child who summoned me, a leggy thirteen-year-old filly with bright lime hair and green eyes, standing over a "crossroads" that was nothing but the intersection of two golf-cart paths at a country club so exclusive that even most millionaires couldn't get in. She was no adult. She was, in fact, a spoiled brat who had accidentally stumbled over the proper ritual in a book stuffed in the back of a library where no one ever read.

Phyllis Gabor. Daughter of millionaire Harvey Gabor.

Candace's daughter.

She looked up at me with awe and just a bit of worship, and I congratulated myself on choosing a particularly handsome, if brainless, specimen for this month's meatsuit. Moonlight frosted the chartreuse of her hair and made her eyes emerald. She would be a beauty when she grew into her meat. Just like her mother.

Her spirit was shot through with bitterness and hatred for her mother, typical of an abandoned child. Candace had decided it would be best to simply walk out, leaving a month before the deal was due, disappearing into the night rather than subjecting her husband and toddler to the agony of watching the Hounds take her. She had never told her husband of her deal with me; it was not the kind of thing a man like Harvey Gabor, a man who knew no life but early poverty and late wealth, could understand.

There was no room for anything but business in Harvey Gabor's world.

"I want to be famous," she whispered. "The book said you could make that happen."

I heard the song beneath her voice, the promise of glory. She didn't need me to make her famous. It was inevitable that she would have her fame—perhaps not as soon as with my help, but she would have her fame. She had no need to sell her soul, even if I could take it.

But there are other deals.

"You're too young, _chérie_ ," I said to her, and watched her adoration deepen at the common French endearment, even as her face fell. "I wish I could, but I do not make the rules."

"But I'm _willing_ ," she said, "and I _want_ you to—"

"You are still a child, _chérie_. You have not grown into your soul. Until you do, I cannot touch it. However—" I tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, let my fingers trail down her face. "There are other deals," I breathed, "less restricted." The light entered her eyes again, making them dance, showing another glimpse of the beauty she would be. "Not your life, _chérie_ , you will need that, but...perhaps..."

"Anything," she whispered, her words heavy with infantile desire. What a treasure, this little one; did Gabor know what he had? Candace had sold her soul to bear him the child of their love, and he had hardly noticed when she walked into Hell. Did he still think he had some ordinary girl-child, to be bought off with mere toys?

"Even..." I let the word trail off.

"Anything!"

"Even your heart?"

"My heart?" Confusion marred her enthusiasm.

"Oh, not the organ, _chérie_. That will remain safely in your chest." I gave her sternum a sharp tap, and she giggled. "The _other_ heart."

The capacity for love and empathy. This is a treasure more rare, more beautiful than any mere soul. Without it, we dealmakers would be out of business; so many of those who come to us seeking to make deals are driven by their love. Oh, a few come for spite, for hate, for greed, but relatively few, and their hearts are too scarred to treasure anyway.

Even demons love, in our own twisted way.

"Will it hurt?" she asked.

I smiled. "Not you, _chérie_. Never you." No. She would be a dealer in pain, this little one, not a sufferer, with her heart stowed safely in my trophy case.

"For how long?"

"This is a different kind of deal, _chérie_. No time limits." She would have to _maintain_ the fame once she had it, but how hard can that be, when you no longer care who you damage in its pursuit?

"Forever?"

"For all your life," I corrected. I never promise what I cannot offer, and _forever_ is well out of my power. A mere human lifetime, on the other hand, is no issue. Without a heart, they seldom survive their full span, but that is hardly _my_ concern.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, and hurled herself at me. I caught her in a spinning embrace, rejoicing in her innocent joy even as I stole the heart from her.

She was a different creature when she walked back to the house—taller, bolder, braver; an infant predator, set loose on a world that saw only a child.

Children cannot sell their souls.

But then, children have so much more to offer.

 ** _the end_**


End file.
